


Moiety

by orangeflavor



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: 100 word drabbles, Exploring Relationships, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, all pairings, drop a suggestion if you'd like
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-04-18 06:22:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 45
Words: 4,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4695470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangeflavor/pseuds/orangeflavor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The harsh line of her back is like a scream." - 100 word drabbles. Wide range of characters, pairings, genres.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dead Man's Grip

Moiety

Chapter One: Dead Man's Grip

* * *

Kolyat's memory is like a dead man's grip.

There is the image of his father, eyes like the smooth underside of a lark, gaze turned from him. Kolyat's hand is small and forgotten in Thane's. His mother drifts across the sea, aimless. His father leaves him that night, coat smelling of moss and hollowed homes.

Overgrown and emptied out.

Years later, when Thane is pleading before him, his mother's name on his lips like the barren branches of winter, he discovers that his father looks exactly the same.

Kolyat's memory holds tight, even when his heart has already let go.


	2. What She Likes Most

Moiety

Chapter Two: What She Likes Most

* * *

What Liara likes most about Shepard is the junction where her shoulder meets her neck. That not-quite-sharp but more-than-smooth dip before her collar bone. A single elegant line. Shepard's thrumming pulse, anchored just above. A solid, taut stretch of muscle that quakes when the woman runs and coils when she cries.

Liara likes the way it arches with the crack of her anger and then evens with the lull of her tenderness.

But more than anything, Liara likes when they embrace, when her blue lips nestle just above that line, hovering imperceptibly, and she can pretend that Shepard is hers.


	3. Getting Out Alive

Moiety

Chapter Three: Getting Out Alive

* * *

"Do you think we'll get off this hunk of rock alive?"

Sidonis' words hang in the air between them. Garrus keeps his gaze locked on the floor, his arms dangling from their perch along his bent knees. Sidonis sits similarly beside him on the steps.

The Omega skyline stretches out before them, red and hungry.

Something begins in Garrus' throat that's not quite sound and not quite vibration. "I came here to die. I'm not getting out alive." Garrus shuts his eyes to the stark back-alley lights.

Sidonis counts the shuttle cars and mouths an apology Garrus will never hear.


	4. Morinth Knows

Moiety

Chapter Four: Morinth Knows

* * *

Morinth knows what love is.

It isn't the deep lull of her victims' breathing when her eyes darken on theirs. It isn't the gleam of her sharp-toothed smile when she parts her lips for them. It isn't the heady tremble of their fingers grasping her neck, or the brilliant searing against the backs of her eyelids or the muffled sound of their throats closing around what should be 'no' but is always, invariably, 'yes'.

Love is the whisper of goodbye she had pressed against Falere's cheek and the way she didn't look back when Rila called out to her, sobbing.


	5. Shared and Not Shared

Moiety

Chapter Five: Shared and Not Shared

* * *

Ashley never speaks about the kiss she shared with Kaidan.

It wasn't a very good one. Mostly fumbling. Mostly hesitance. His sweaty fingers on her neck. Her stepping on the toe of his boot when she moves into him.

They laugh when they break apart. But he keeps his hand in her hair and she has not stopped staring at his Adam's apple.

They clear their throats, dismiss the moment. They move from the darkened corner of the cargo bay as she jokingly threatens him into silence.

And then Virmire happens and for years Ashley wishes they had tried again.


	6. Quantified

Moiety

Chapter Six: Quantified

* * *

Mordin could tell you exactly what happened when he shot Maelon.

He calculated that he was 4.6 feet away from his former assistant when the truth came out, and then he closed that space to 1 foot in the span of a breath, his Carnifex jutted into the other salarian's throat. The temperature in the room was 94˚ Fahrenheit. Mordin's pistol weighed precisely 41.2 ounces and fired at 3,937 feet a second.

Mordin could tell you exactly what happened except why.

Nothing in Mordin's career had taught him how to quantify regret.

So he measured it at 6 feet deep.


	7. Over or Under

Moiety

Chapter Seven: Over or Under

* * *

"I apologize, siha," Thane sighs, the barest hint of uncertainty lighting his voice, "but, once more, was it over or under?" His hands still.

The lilt of her lips is beyond his view and so she smiles only to herself. "Over."

"Ah," he responds more confidently, deft fingers returning to their motion.

Shepard can feel the firm brace of his knees on either side of her as he sits along the edge of her bed and she sits Indian-style on the floor before him. As he lovingly weaves a braid through her hair, Shepard weaves a memory through her heart.


	8. Brush-Stroked

Moiety

Chapter Eight: Brush-Stroked

* * *

Tali paints. She paints images of the _Normandy_ and her crew. She paints Rannoch as seen through the old poets' words. Sometimes she paints Kal'Reegar, while she smiles behind glass.

But mostly she paints her father's face. How she sees it in her dreams. What she can gleam from his voice. How she imagines his smile must look in the light.

She has known the blank visage of his mask for so long that the only time she feels he truly sees her is through brush-stroked eyes.

Sometimes she trails her fingers over his painted cheek and imagines the warmth.


	9. A Deadly Thing

Moiety

Chapter Nine: A Deadly Thing

* * *

Anderson's M-37 Falcon assault rifle has a barrel the color of Saren's skin. The angled lines of its stock bow like his mandibles. The mini mass accelerator thrums just beneath the rear sight, humming like the rogue Spectre's sub-vocals. And when Anderson locks in a new heat sink it snaps like the turian's cunning gaze.

But it's the explosive sound of gunfire bursting from the chamber that reminds him most of Saren. The way the sharp crack resounds like Anderson's fist had once across Saren's jaw, those many years ago.

To Anderson, the past has always been a deadly thing.


	10. Mistake

Moiety

Chapter Ten: Mistake

* * *

"This was a mistake," Miranda gasps into Jack's skin, her teeth sinking into the woman's shoulder.

A hiss passes through Jack's bared teeth, her fingers gripping the white expanse of Miranda's thighs. Her skin flares blue for the span of a breath. It is saccharine in Miranda's mouth. The cold bulkhead is at Miranda's back, her head snapping up at the chill, her moan reverberating between them.

Jack grasps at Miranda's bare throat, a calloused thumb digging into her delicate collarbone, skin slick with sweat.

"We always were," Jack breathes in answer, tongue dipping to the curve of her neck.


	11. Silence

Moiety

Chapter Eleven: Silence

* * *

Samara has never been afraid of silence.

She knows the blaring emptiness of screams, the sharp bitterness of dead words, the halting weight of a last breath. She knows these intimately and dearly. She knows their sound in the throat of her broken daughter.

When Morinth is lying still and finished on the floor at her feet, Samara lifts her bloodied hand to the light and listens.

Her daughter's blood is caked into the creases of her palms, and even now, it sings to her.

It is the noise of death, rather than the silence of life, that terrifies her.


	12. Deadened Weight

Moiety

Chapter Twelve: Deadened Weight

* * *

Jacob places his hand along Brynn's swollen belly as she sleeps in the shadowed light of their bedroom. He feels the steady rise and fall of her breaths. He listens to the heavy thud of his heartbeat in his ears. And he tastes the sour tang of fear on his tongue when he feels his child kick.

Jacob pulls from the bed and stands silhouetted in darkness before the window.

He feels the deadened weight of  _father_  and  _lost_  and  _alone_  settle low in his gut.

He never tells Brynn of the suitcase he leaves half-packed in the hall closet.


	13. Long into the Night

Moiety

Chapter Thirteen: Long into the Night

* * *

Steve's cheek splits open when the marine's fist slams into his face and he staggers back with the force of it. Someone hollers across the bar and the pub erupts into chaos.

"Esteban!" he hears through the ringing in his ears, and turns in time to see James vaulting over an up-turned table before landing a punch square along his attacker's jaw.

Steve spits blood along the beer-strewn floor and smiles brilliantly at James. "Came for the party?"

James dodges another marine's fist and stumbles back beside Steve. "Wouldn't miss it," he hoots.

Steve's laughter carries long into the night.


	14. What He Cannot Carry

Moiety

Chapter Fourteen: What He Cannot Carry

* * *

Kaidan wakes to find Shepard sitting on the edge of the bed, outlined in darkness. Her back is to him, and even in the nightly shadows of their bedroom, he can see the curve of her hunched shoulders, the quake she tries to hide.

He sighs, rolling over to his side to watch her in the dark. The harsh line of her back is like a scream.

"I would carry this for you if I could," he chokes out.

"But you can't," she whispers, voice dead. Her fist curls around Anderson's dog tags and Kaidan can find no other words.


	15. Rupture

Moiety

Chapter Fifteen: Rupture

* * *

There are the things we share. The things we keep hidden. And then the things that slowly kill us without our knowing.

Liara expects the tears when she looks down at her mother's still-warm body slumped dead at her feet. She expects the sharp, branding fear along her tongue, even when she turns to Shepard and lies, whispering "I'm fine" in a voice that sounds too much like Benezia's.

But she doesn't expect the silent, deadly rupture of her heart that begins to take root that day, poisoning the air in her lungs.

The galaxy isn't kind to delicate things.


	16. What Nightmares Are Made Of

Moiety

Chapter Sixteen: What Nightmares Are Made Of

* * *

It isn't the 212's screams that plague Ashley's nightmares. It isn't the blinding terror on Larkin's face, or the painful gurgle in Gomez's throat as he bled out, or the way that first husk had looked exactly like Simmons.

Ashley dreams of the day Santiago pushed Kenson into the lake, armor and all. She dreams of the night McInnis lost their bet on fastest rifle assembly time and ran through the camp stark naked for it. She dreams of Hasbeth's face when they swapped the water in his canteen for ryncol.

Ashley dreams of laughter but always awakens in tears.


	17. A Cold, Dead Place

Moiety

Chapter Seventeen: A Cold, Dead Place

* * *

"Never again," Joker promises, eyes fixed on the flight terminal in front of him.

Shepard narrows her eyes in confusion.

Outside the _Normandy_ , the blaring sun of the Hoplos system blankets the hull in gleaming light.

Joker's hands begin to shake. "When you died." He swallows, throat constricting. "When you died because you came back _for me_." His voice is like shadow.

The sag of Shepard's shoulders carries her sigh down into her bones. "Joker, don't." Her hand finds his. The glint of sunlight flickers through the shutter panels and space is suddenly, inexplicable, no longer a cold, dead place.


	18. Rannoch Cliffside

Moiety

Chapter Eighteen: Rannoch Cliffside

* * *

It is the sharp angle of her locked elbow when Tali plants her hand along her hip. It is the subtle tilt of her head and the low hum of thought that colors her voice. It is the way she smoothly slides her forefinger along the barrel of her shotgun. It is the graceful line of her calf when she twists behind cover.

It is all these things that Legion finally understands, as he lays along the warm stones of a Rannoch cliffside and recognizes his own slow dying.

It is all these things that tell him he is home.


	19. The Worse Scars

Moiety

Chapter Nineteen: The Worse Scars

* * *

Some days, Garrus stares long into the mirror, letting his eyes trace the jagged lines of his ruined jaw. He follows the harsh curve of scarred flesh as a tentative mandible flexes. He tilts his chin in the slanted light of the bathroom and watches the white stretch of scar meld into shadow.

Then there are days he has forgotten his own face.

It isn't until he is watching Shepard back away from his wounded form on the _Normandy_ 's cargo ramp, her figure silhouetted in the light of the Crucible beam, that he understands the worse scars are always unseen.


	20. Most Masterful

Moiety

Chapter Twenty: Most Masterful

* * *

Kasumi knows how to live in shadow. She knows how to hollow out a secret and curl up inside it. How to be that brush of cold fingers along your spine, and the intangible image resting always in the corner of your eye.

But it's the art of grief where Kasumi is most masterful. The way it seeps into your pores and taints your skin. The way it blankets your tongue and slaughters the words in your throat. The way it brittles your bones with weariness only the grave could give.

She can't remember the color of Keiji's eyes anymore.


	21. Hands

Moiety

Chapter Twenty One: Hands

* * *

Miranda holds Oriana's hands in her own, turning them over, her fingers whispering reverently along his sister's skin. So much like her own.

Miranda traces a line cutting across Oriana's palm, a line that, if she only looked, she'd find stretching the same path across her own flesh. And then her fingers. Fine-boned and delicate. Slender.

Lawson hands.

There is intensity tucked between each knuckle and grace hidden in every swirling fingerprint. There is firmness in the heels of their palms and tenderness at the tips of their fingers.

Identical in every way, but for what they hold.

Each other.


	22. Faces

Moiety

Chapter Twenty Two: Faces

* * *

Wrex remembers the bone-splitting howl his father let loose when he sunk his blade deep into his second heart. He remembers the red of his eyes like the barren Tuchanka sun across the dead plains. He remembers the bitter tang of his father's waning biotics as they stained the air one last time.

It's in every charge of his shotgun. Every snap of his armor plates. Every surge of brilliant blue that curls from him like smoke.

In every enemy and every corpse and every mirror, he recognizes his father's traitorous face.

It's his mother's he can no longer recall.


	23. The Pacific

Moiety

Chapter Twenty Three: The Pacific

* * *

"Hey Lola," James breathes against her skin, smile breaking across her shoulder.

"Mm?"

"When this war is over, I want to take you to the Pacific." His thumb traces the length of her collar bone, soft and wicked and sharp in his hands.

"What's in the Pacific?" She sounds like crisp air. Like the snap of sails. Like waves sloping up the shore.

"Mi casa." His hum of thought rolls from his lips to her sweat-slicked skin. "And maybe yours too."

He dips his tongue to the hollow of her throat and tastes her.

Like salt and sand.

Like home.


	24. Beneath the Rubble

Moiety

Chapter Twenty Four: Beneath the Rubble

* * *

Anderson pushes another slab of debris from the pile atop her. Pieces of Sovereign litter the chamber floor. He grunts as he shoves another chunk of metal aside. And then he sees her hand peeking through, outstretched, fingers searching.

"I'm here," he calls, arms wrapping around the beam that traps her beneath the rubble and _pulling_. It sloughs off to the side.

Her hand becomes an arm, and then a chest, and then her face in his shoulder, her trembling fingers at his back and her choke of pain drowned in his coat.

"I'm here," he repeats.

Shepard nods, sobbing.


	25. Leather-Bound

Moiety

Chapter Twenty Five: Leather-Bound

* * *

Kolyat stands in the blaring light of the hospital window. The prayer book is heavy in his hands, the leather years-worn and pages crackling like cinders.

On the bed beside him, Thane's breath rattles from him like the brittle branches of autumn in a wayward wind.

Kolyat reads the prayers aloud until the words have become one breath, one ache in his lungs. A single, even lull, stretching far and deep, like the absence of his father those many years ago.

Like the space between their hands now.

A chasm as empty as leather-bound prayers in a voice like winter.


	26. Shepard Runs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I missed my precious babies.

Moiety

Chapter Twenty Six: Shepard Runs

* * *

Shepard runs.

There is a bright beam of light just ahead, the harrowing barrage of gunfire around her, the hard-packed earth beneath her.

Her eyes glance skyward, light branching higher, _higher_ , up and up and away into a deadened night as dark as his eyes.

She thinks she sees him, at the end of the beam, but the blood seeping over her temple is too hot, and the pounding breath in her lungs is too tight, and the screams on her heels are too loud.

Thane waits along the shore.

She has been running for such a long, long time.


	27. What They Miss

Moiety

Chapter Twenty Seven: What They Miss

* * *

Traynor has been watching Shepard since the moment she stepped foot on the Normandy. Her eyes shift in hesitant strokes along the commander's back, her lips parted as though to speak but it is only ever a choked gasp of air that leaves her.

Liara has been watching the commander for even longer. She has perfected the gaze of the invisible lover, her eyes marking paths her hands have longed to trace for years.

They keep quiet. They keep distant. They keep drowning.

As their eyes linger always on Shepard, neither of them sees what they miss.

Namely, each other.


	28. No Atlas

Moiety

Chapter Twenty Eight: No Atlas

* * *

Hackett stands in the rain, his tightly buttoned-up Alliance pea-coat bleeding the color of his grief. The water runs cold and chill down his back, marking a line that curls with age and exhaustion. His shoulders cannot carry the weight any more – he is no Atlas, never has been – and when the first wad of emotion wedges itself tight in his throat he barely remembers to breathe.

She was the best of them. Too young and too bold and too brilliant for this world.

His eyes trace the name Shepard on the grey stone, even as they blur with tears.


	29. Between Her Ribs

Moiety

Chapter Twenty Nine: Between Her Ribs

* * *

Grunt watches as Shepard stumbles – a gasping pain leaked between her ribs. She falters, growls her defiance, falls to one knee. She braces herself with the barrel of her shotgun in the dirt, keeping herself upright, panting heatedly – he can see the sweat glinting off her brow and the gash along her cheek from where he crouches behind cover.

The world slows.

He watches, transfixed, as she shouts her resistance, fist bunching in the dirt, pushing up forcefully from the ground. She spits blood from her lips, frown set, legs already marching on.

Grunt finally understands the definition of perfection.


	30. Reverse Blindness

Moiety

Chapter Thirty: Reverse Blindness

* * *

"Ready when you are," Kal'Reegar affirms as their transport ship speeds through the air.

Tali glances out the port view to the blistering sun of Dholen as it blankets Haestrom in deadly light. She risks a peek at Kal, face hidden behind her mask.

But in their reverse blindness, quarians have learned to read every minute tilt of the head, every silent quirk, every subtle brush of motion.

Kal feels her watching him. "Ma'am?"

She looks away quickly.

Even the way he says 'ma'am' is more intimate, more daring, than any sweet word that's ever been whispered in her ear.


	31. The Good of the Many

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

Moiety

Chapter Thirty-One: The Good of the Many

* * *

For the good of the many.

This is what the Illusive Man believes in.

Every back-alley deal made, every lie told, every credit stolen, every life snuffed.

For the good of the many.

"I wish you could see it like I do, Shepard," he says through broken vocal chords, the cold tile of the Citadel's deck beneath his reaperized cheek.

Beyond the blood-scuffed leather of Shepard's boots, his line of sight catches the brilliant blue orb of Earth.

"Beautiful," he whispers.

He believes it still, even as he's always known – in the end – he would never be of the 'many'.


	32. Mirror

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

Moiety

Chapter Thirty-Two: Mirror

* * *

Zaeed Massani has never been one to look long into the mirror. He has a face full of scars and a heart full of rage and one good eye that keeps looking back, because the past has never been a finished thing for him.

Zaeed plants his hands along the sink's basin, squinting into the mirror.

Sometimes he sees a charismatic man, sometimes a gruff mercenary, sometimes an angry drunkard.

Sometimes he sees the way things could have been.

But that one good eye keeps looking back.

He sighs, gaze dropping.

Sometimes, when he looks, he sees nothing at all.


	33. Never Farther

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

Moiety

Chapter Thirty-Three: Never Farther

* * *

EDI watches.

The light squeeze of Shepard's hand on Ashley's shoulder. Tali's playful punch to Garrus' chest. Engineer Adams' hesitant grasp of Chakwas' elbow as he catches her in the mess hall. Gabby's flick to Kenneth's forehead and the tender way she rubs it afterwards, laughing, as Kenneth pouts.

EDI watches all of this.

"You okay?" Joker asks beside her.

She looks up to find him watching her with an amused look.

He has never seemed farther than he does now, when he is close enough to touch and she suddenly realizes she will never be able to  _feel_ it.


	34. Far Louder

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

Moiety

Chapter Thirty-Four: Far Louder

* * *

"Jack…" Shepard's whisper dies off in the air as they stand before the dead body of one of Grissom's students. The young girl's bright, blonde hair is stained red, splayed out over her face. Her back is burned through from incendiary rounds, a pool of blood slowly building beneath her.

Still warm.

Jack's hands clench into fists at her sides. "Dumb kid. That dumb, _fucking_ kid."

"Jack," Shepard says again, this time shaking beneath the threat of tears.

She is already walking away, and the stiff line of her back is far louder than any ragged scream she could muster.


	35. Breathe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm sorry, but like, ya'll know this is my shtick...

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

Moiety

Chapter Thirty-Five: Breathe

* * *

Thane coughs into the hospital sheet. It comes away splattered with blood.

Shepard's hand finds his as she curls into his side, her mouth planted at his shoulder. Her eyes flutter closed and she breathes deep. One large, scraping, haggard breath.

If she could, she would breathe enough for the both of them.

"I'm not afraid, siha."

The air leaves her in a single rush and so does her mind.

There is nothing left in her but him.

Her hand grips his tighter as she gasps her trembling response into his skin. "Neither am I."

She lies.

She always has.


	36. History

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

Moiety

Chapter Thirty-Six: History

* * *

"What do I tell them?"

Shepard looks up at Liara's question, at the subtle way she turns her hands over in her lap, the soft cone of light spreading from her time capsule on the table, the image of herself – stalwart and straight-backed – reflecting out in miniature. Liara's 'project' as she called it.

Shepard remembers the call she made to abandon the Council, and Mordin's back as she fired her Carnifex, and Tali's sobbing as the quarian fleet disintegrated over Rannoch.

"Tell them I have no regrets."

She pulls away, gaze on her knees.

History was never very forgiving anyway.


	37. Hero

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

Moiety

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Hero

* * *

"Remember that time I –"

"Of course I do," Gabby interjects, fingers flying over her engineering terminal, eyes on the board.

Kenneth frowns beside her. "I didn't even finish, girl."

She allows herself a soft smirk. "I remember all your fuck-ups, Kenneth."

He gasps in mock hurt, hand to his chest.

Her smirk spreads wider, becomes a smile. "Am I wrong?"

He scoffs, but it's a laugh. "We both know you're never wrong."

"Which is why I'll always be here to _un_ -fuck the situation."

"My hero," he coos, landing a smacker on her cheek.

Gabby suddenly realizes she loves him.


	38. Of Earth

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

Moiety

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Of Earth

* * *

Commander Bailey sits along one of the many benches outside the C-Sec cafeteria, an open patio to the Presidium's perpetually cloudless sky and vacuum-filtered air. He rubs a hand along the back of his neck, sighing.

Sometimes he misses the hazy heat of a packed pub at night, the shadow of water-logged clouds over the horizon, the soft tang of wet cement in early Spring, the view of a waning Moon from Earth.

But mostly, he misses his children.

Mostly, he misses the word 'father'.

Earth was never more than a place he used to hail from, until it wasn't.


	39. Atrophy

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

Moiety

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Atrophy

* * *

When Omega is retaken, and the streets are littered with Cerberus bodies – when the raucous shouts of her name are playing over all the channels – when her grip on her shotgun has finally loosened, Aria stands silently before the ashes of Nyreen.

A charred streak of pavement that might have been turian or might have been adjuctant.

She'll never really know what it is she says 'goodbye' to, but she says it all the same.

Aria learned many years ago – before she ever took a bright-eyed turian lover – that love spent too long in one place turns to atrophy.


	40. Almost

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

Moiety

Chapter Forty: Almost

* * *

"You know, Lawson, you could just –" Kolyat stopped mid-insult as Oriana glanced up from her datapad, eyes bleary, a harsh line crinkling her brow.

"What, Krios?" she snapped, a withering sigh breaking from her lips.

He blinked at her. She blinked back.

If they held the stare any longer, they might have found that frustration was a poor cover for loneliness.

But instead he looked away, as he always has. And she only frowned, as she always has.

"Get some sleep," he muttered, swallowing his intended sarcasm.

Her lips parted, soundless.

He almost loved her.

She almost let him.


	41. Blood and Ink

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

Moiety

Chapter Forty One: Blood and Ink

* * *

Jack used to think that all that ink blotched and seared into her skin would be enough to cover the scars – that ink was enough to drown out blood altogether.

She discovers, instead, that they are actually intimates.

Gathering in the same warm rivulets down her arms, creasing in the same dried cracks of her palms, staining her skin with the same dark shadow.

When she finds herself alone some nights, Jack braces her hand to the base of her skull and runs a calloused finger along her scar.

Blood and ink in equal measure.

Some things never leave you.


	42. This Earth

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

Moiety

Chapter Forty Two: This Earth

* * *

Shepard doesn't remember this Earth.

She remembers the corner of 8th and Wilcox, with its exhaustingly loud vendors of fruit and hand-crafted jewelry and pirated omni-vid files. She remembers the boys on their bicycles, posted up outside Sal's Subs, their static-punctured radio channels blaring from their stolen omni-tools. She remembers the boarded-up grocery, where the neighborhood's elderly camped their rockers out front, decades-old newspapers blowing across the street like urban tumbleweeds.

Shepard looks at the devastation around her, the Crucible's beam in the distance.

She doesn't remember this Earth.

Ruined and silent and still.

Shepard doesn't remember a dead planet.


	43. Many Light Years Past

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

Moiety

Chapter Forty Three: Many Light Years Past

_* * *_

_"Skipper,_

_May you always find a use for that iron heart of yours. 'To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.'"_

Shepard holds the book open with a tender hand braced along the spine, the inscription faintly legible in the dim light of her cabin. Her fingers trace the words reverently.

_"Lord knows this galaxy could use a little more of that. A little more of you."_

Shepard's throat tightens reflexively.

_"Do us proud,_

_A. Williams."_

She slides the book closed with a tear-laden sigh. There are many choices still ahead, and Virmire is many light years past.


	44. Home Life

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

Moiety

Chapter Forty Four: Home Life

* * *

"What's this?"

James glances over his shoulder to eye Shepard from his position at the stove. She stands with one arm draped over the open refrigerator door and the other holding up a pitcher of bright orange something.

"Ah," he recognizes, smile breaking free as he returns to his eggs. "That's the carrot juice."

Shepard eyes it like it's diseased. "What's it for?"

"For my protein shakes," he answers easily, and then, another look over his shoulder. "You want some eggs, babe?"

Shepard opens her mouth, then closes it, then, "You're so…domestic."

James laughs.

Shepard finds it rather suits him.


	45. Living With It

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

Moiety

Chapter Forty Five: Living With It

* * *

Kai Leng learns to live with regret.

It is easier than he thinks. Certainly easier than sinking his blade into flesh, than walking away to the sound of bloody coughs, than the silence that settles in the wake of his shadowed steps.

It is easier than forgiveness, or guilt. It is even easier than resentment – and he hadn't ever thought anything could eclipse _that_.

Kai Leng learns to live with regret because nothing else in his life has ever bothered to linger longer than it.

He learns to live with regret because it is better than not living at all.


End file.
